


Missing Child

by heatherchandler (red_handedjill)



Series: Modern Awakening [1]
Category: Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: F/M, Modern AU, Past Abuse, Running Away, also complies with canon, headcanons, lots of the friendships, mentioned hernst, surprise surprise ilse becomes a model
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-16 14:18:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4628418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_handedjill/pseuds/heatherchandler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She drops the milk when she realizes there's a pretty picture of her on it and she runs. — moritz/ilse, ilse-centric</p><p>OR, she runs away — gets kicked out, really — and there's no going back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Missing Child

Her first instinct is to run to the meadow they played in as children. Her braids are halfway undone and her nightgown is thin and her stalkings are slipping down her legs but she runs for her fucking life with nothing but her backpack and the envelope she stole off the coffee table.

The moon is high in the night sky when she reaches the meadow, out of breath and bent over. She lets herself fall to the grass and slides the cash out of the envelope. She'd overhead Papa on the phone two nights before, talking about it with Mama.

It's €300 even and she almost cries over it because it's the most she's ever held but it's nothing to live off.

"You don't have a choice now," she whispers to herself. Ilse picks herself up, peels her wet stalkings off, and walks. "It's better than their house," she says through grit teeth.

It's not a lie and she hates that.

* * *

It takes less than twelve hours to miss her friends. She searches her backpack for something — a note they passed, a picture, a book she can't return, anything. She finds nothing but her phone, it's at 10% and she knows she has a hundred photos with them on it but  _what if her parents change their minds?_

They can track her phone, put her back into that _fucking_ house. He could touch her again.

Ilse slams her bag down on the phone as hard as she can until she hears it break. "I'm sorry," she whispers, "Wendla ... Moritz ... Melchi." She closes her eyes and sits in the sun for a minute, imagining all of their faces again. It hurts more than she thought it possibly could.

But she remembers that she has to keep moving and gets up.

* * *

Food. She hasn't eaten in a day now and she needs to eat. She needs to sleep somewhere and she needs more clothes because this nightgown and those stalkings are all she has and she needs to see her friends because she's hurting without them and she needs to never go back to that house and she doesn't have enough money for any of it.

Where will she stay?

She wishes she'd thought any of this through. This isn't something she can do. Fuck. How will she get more money? What can she possibly do?

Moritz used to paint her. She can remember it so clearly, the day she found out he painted at all. The day he asked to paint her, so shy and timid and mousy about it. She'd giggled and asked him how he wanted her to pose. It took hours of just sitting there, completely still, but he loved to paint her.

She wonders who he'll paint now and if he can sleep at night and how his grades are and if he's going to audition for the musical like he'd rambled about maybe possibly doing at lunch for the last month and who he likes and if he misses her.

Then she reminds herself she has to think about herself now.

Ilse starts thinking about herself by dying her hair a dirty blonde, she can't be Ilse Neumann now. She throws out the hair bands that make the braids Ilse Neumann wears and she throws out the remainders of her cellphone and she throws out Ilse Neumann's favorite book. She decides to tell people her name is Anna Hertz.

* * *

Finding someone to model for is easier than she'd thought. He's old and his eyes are crinkled but he pays well and lets her live in his studio apartment for a week. He buys her new dresses and touches her under them late at night but she focuses on her breathing and tells herself that it's okay.

(It's never okay.)

By the end of the week, her €300 is €2000, four new dresses, and enough meals to keep her stomach content. She leaves with the sun after she finds blood on her thighs because it reminds her too much of the first time.

* * *

She slips into another town and convinces a hostel owner to let her stay for free, without any identification. (Ilse doesn't let herself cry after it's done because, damn it, she's better than that.)

A traveler who looks too much like Martha smiles at her and tries to make conversation so she bullshits a blonde boy who smokes too much and doesn't believe in any kind of god but talks about "the system" and "the man" (she cringes when she realizes that's Hanschen) to run off to. It doesn't hurt, she tells herself it doesn't hurt.

She sees herself in a shop window, wearing a dress the painter (she's already unlearnt his name) bought her with her hair glistening in the sun and almost stops in her tracks. For the first time, it really hits her that she isn't Ilse Neumann anymore. She doesn't like the feeling.

Five minutes later, Ilse is puking in a gas station bathroom because of it. Her favorite candy catches her eye on the way out and she steals it without a second thought. It's heavy in her pocket, screaming of all the times she'd eaten it with the girls, listening to them talk about their parents and school and boys and plans and absolutely anything.

She swears to herself that it doesn't kill her but that's a lie.

(She's out of this town when the hostel owner wants her again, sitting on a train with money she stole from him.)

* * *

A new artist grabs her off the street, tells her to strip, and paints her in the new town. He marvels at the blues and purples on her legs and the scars on her almost caved in stomach as she shivers in his too cold apartment. They look almost pretty in pastel colors, seeming to swirl around her pale skin.

He touches her too much to fix her pose and she knows exactly what he wants.

(Can't he tell she's only fourteen?)

He slips euros into her hand but not enough for pay and says to buy his groceries. She knows he's not offering her a choice.

* * *

She lets herself fall into routine with this man — his name is Gottfried but she hates the way it feels on her tongue. He strips her of her clothes each day (either to be painted or thrown to a floor or a bed), he puts euros in her hand, she buys whatever he wants, they eat, he talks to her like a madman of whatever he's painted.

She hates shopping though. She always lets herself think of her friends — if Melchior has upset any teachers with his rants lately, if Wendla has finally persuaded her mama to tell her what it _really_ is (she'd been talking so certainly about how it most definitely was not a stork and Ilse had considered telling her so many times), if Moritz is sleeping properly for once in his life, if Martha has gotten help, if Anna has come out to her parents yet, if Thea has grown at all, if Hanschen has seduced anyone this week (she suspects Ernst, from their painful looks at each other and hopes he knows that she will find a way to kill him if he breaks little Ernst's heart), if Ernst finally mastered that recipe he talked to her about, if Georg finished composing what he showed her, if Otto has learnt to be happy with himself.

But she always does it and she always returns Gottfried his money and he always looks at her like he'll eat her alive.

Then, one day, he needs milk. She goes to the back of the shop and opens their refrigerator and grabs the cheapest carton they have. All she wants to do is check the expiration date. There's a missing child picture printed onto the carton and she ignores it at first.

She drops the milk when she realizes there's a pretty picture of her on it and she runs.

Ilse remembers that picture. She remembers what Papa did to her after it was taken. She remembers the bruising between her legs. She remembers the bleeding. She remembers the screaming. She remembers exactly what that day did to her.

It's why Mama kicked her out, after all.

The memory burns.

She's certain fourteen is much too young for any of this.

* * *

It's been three months since she ran away from "home." She hasn't done very much running but she still calls it running away. From the milk cartons with her face on them, from the hands on her throat, from the braids in her hair, from the broken phone, from the little peaceful town, from absolute hell.

Running away is more aimless than she'd thought. She has nowhere to run away to, only artists who put money in her hand and strip her down to various states and forget how old she is (or she says she's older) and don't ask her name.

(She wants to yell at them that she is Ilse Neumann and there are friends who miss her but she doesn't know anymore.)

Gottfried hurt her and stripped her to nothing but at least he asked her name (but she doesn't feel bad for buying clothes with his grocery money). "Anna Hertz," she'd smiled, trying not to think of the Anna who gives the warmest hugs and giggles that Moritz Stiefel is in love with Ilse Neumann ("it's not true," Ilse had always laughed back).

She cries herself to sleep and doesn't touch her Top Ramen.

* * *

For the first time since she was kicked out, Ilse uses a computer. It's a shitty dinosaur in a cafe that costs too much with a waiter who flirts until he sees she hasn't even touched the little she ordered but it's the first time she's had any means of contacting anyone.

A thousand thoughts soar through her head — she could email someone (Martha wouldn't be able to answer but Thea has always been so punctual with these things), she could scan through an Instagram page, she could let them know she's safe. She doesn't do any of it.

She tells herself it's too risky and instead she searches something she never thought she would.

"Ilse Neumann."

There are hundreds of results. "Ilse Neumann missing," "Ilse Neumann dead," "Ilse Neumann parents," "Ilse Neumann age." She almost pukes at the sight of people Googling her age — wanting to know if she's legal?

Instead, she clicks on "missing" and articles pop up. There are statements given, by friends and family. Her Nana hopes she's safe and eating, wherever she is. Her parents say they're very concerned and they think someone took her — "bullshit," she whispers. Her friends have given statements ranging from generic to hopeless. Do they miss her? She doesn't know.

She doesn't think she wants to.

* * *

She touches up her roots for the dozenth time before she hitchhikes into another town. Like always, she looks for a job first. A boy only three years older than her decides she's "the one." He kisses her after he's painted her and she forces herself not to push him off.

(She doesn't let herself think about how his hair doesn't stay down and his socks are too big on him.)

There's money in her hand and he's offering to let her live with him for a month. She says yes and hopes he won't touch her.

* * *

Two weeks into staying with him, she wants to curl up and cry. He hasn't touched her outside of chaste kisses. He hasn't yelled or raised his voice or hurt her. His name is Johan and everything he does makes her think of Moritz Stiefel and home.

(Of art with Wendla, of history and science with Melchi, of English with Martha and Otto, of eating lunch with them all.)

He calls her into his room sometimes, he can't sleep because he's haunted by dreams that terrify him — sex terrifies her too. They whisper in the dark and their hands lay beside each other, perfectly still.

He twitches in excitement when she praises his paintings. His smile stretches wide and fast, but it's shy and timid.

Ilse decides she can't stay a month with him.

* * *

A wisp of brown curls catches her eyes and, even though it's unreasonable and stupid, she twists around to see the full sight because  _what if it_ is _Wendla?_ It isn't but it could have been. The sleek blond haired boy with a cigarette between his lips could be Hanschen. The tall girl with two even braids could be Martha. The boy with ridiculous hair and glasses and slender fingers could be Georg. The mousy boy trying to hide behind his dark hair could be Ernst.

Anyone here could be someone she knows.

Anyone here could know she's not Anna Hertz.

It's a terrifying thought. Anyone could recognize her. Anyone could call her out. Anyone could say her name — and what if she responded?

Back to her home? Back to her room to wait for him? And if she was back to her room ... What if  _it_ happened again? She would need that horrible metal tool twisted back inside her to kill it. She would run lighter again. Something would go missing again. But would keeping that  _thing_ inside her be better?

"No."

Ilse can never go back. Not even for them.

* * *

The worst thing happens and she has to go back. Moritz tried to kill himself. He had a gun, his father's gun. He missed a vital spot by just an inch. If Wendla hadn't found him ...

She's trembling. There are goosebumps climbing up her flesh. The mere thought of if Moritz had ... She has to go back.

She'll disguise herself, paint her face any color, darken her eyebrows, dye her hair again, anything. Ilse can't ignore this. God. She wishes she could ignore this.

"Tell the angels I'm coming home."

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So this feels kind of incomplete to me but I'm not entirely sure so, tell me if you think I need to add more.


End file.
